"Often do" is not the same as "generally".

Who said "generally"? I said, "If the state does some business exclusively with some 'private corporation' and if this corporation does no other business, this corporation is indistinguishable from a state agency."

Most state agencies I've been involved with definitely had monopolies on the services they provided.

Which is precisely why your business with them is part and parcel of their monopoly.

Private corporations which compete for government contracts will almost always have more competitors than do state agencies – which generally have none.

Your competition for these contracts is inconsequential. It's not true that a state agency has no competitors. States may have multiple agencies performing similar tasks and often do. You could just as easily work for some state agency competing for statutory appropriations, as I did.

Your dealings with the state are "private sector" in name only. These dealings are corporatist (fascist), while a state agency performing the same tasks is essentially socialist. You're a fascist. I was a socialist. I don't prefer one over the other. It's a distinction without a difference.

It's not incorporation that makes an organization corporatist. It's the commercial dealings with the state. Your customer is the state and by extension the taxpayer, but the taxpayer doesn't choose to do business with you, unless these biannual plebicites are supposed to be the "choice". I categorically reject this nomenclature.

Sorry, but I do not believe that state agencies have near the survival risk as do government contractors.

Any number of government contractors have been around for the better part of a century. States may prefer state employees in nominal state agencies to these quasi-state-agency contractors, and I don't know why they shouldn't really. Blackwater for example is a frighteningly fascistic organization.

Furthermore, I do not believe that a contractor always "survives for the duration of its contracts".

Of course, it does, unless the contract is voided for some reason, in which case it isn't a contract anymore. State agencies can also be dissolved at any time, theoretically. There's not a dime's worth of difference between a state "contracting out" and simply assigning the task to some state agency. Maybe there's a penny's worth.

The problem usually is that the state is doing the business at all. Contracting out doesn't solve this problem.

"Often do" is not the same as "generally". Most state agencies I've been involved with definitely had monopolies on the services they provided. Private corporations which compete for government contracts will almost always have more competitors than do state agencies – which generally have none.

Martin Brock: "A contractor survives for the duration of its contracts just as any other state agency survives for the duration of its appropriations."

Sorry, but I do not believe that state agencies have near the survival risk as do government contractors. Furthermore, I do not believe that a contractor always "survives for the duration of its contracts". Most probably do, but the risk of failure is always present.

the corporation has a permanent monopoly on that business with the state …

States may have redundant agencies and often do, so this monopoly is not necessary for a private corporation to be like a state agency.

the state guarantees the corporation will survive regardless of its efficiency

A contractor survives for the duration of its contracts just as any other state agency survives for the duration of its appropriations.

Government contracts I've bid on, on behalf of my employers, were extremely competitive.

That's a good thing, I suppose, but government agencies nominally compete for appropriations as well, so this competition doesn't much distinguish a contractor from a government agency.

Have you prepared a bid for a government contract, Martin? Would you mind sharing that experience with us?

I've worked for a Federal agency and witnessed the competition for appropriations. Soviet agencies also competed for state funding, so I'm not sure what point you're making here.

I suppose if:

1. the corporation has a permanent monopoly on that business with the state; and

2. the state guarantees the corporation will survive regardless of its efficiency;

then perhaps such corporations would be indistinguishable from state agencies. But how often is either condition met in relationships between government and private enterprise?

Government contracts I've bid on, on behalf of my employers, were extremely competitive. Private enterprise often incurs significant costs just in preparing bids, and takes risks in devoting their resources to such preparation. Not sure how many such risks the typical government agency faces, but I think not too many.

Have you prepared a bid for a government contract, Martin? Would you mind sharing that experience with us?